Pickup trucks are very popular vehicles and have many uses for commercial, recreational and personal purposes. A standard pickup truck includes a cab in which a driver and one or more passengers may sit and a rear bed into which items may be stored. The bed is partially defined by two vertical side rails and a tailgate which may be lowered so that larger or heavier items can be more easily placed into the bed. A typical tailgate manually rotates down to an open position and up to a closed position. However, a driver may occasionally forget to close the tailgate after loading the items into the bed.
A pickup truck includes mirrors, such as for example, a rear mounted center mirror and one or more side mirrors mounted on either side of truck near the cab. The mirrors which permit the driver to have certain lines of sight behind the pickup truck. However, the mirrors do not typically provide an adequate view of the tailgate sufficient for the driver to ascertain if the tailgate is open or closed. This characteristic of a pickup truck can be adversely magnified if the bed is loaded high with material or if the bed is covered, such as for example, by a cover extending across the bed and between the top of the side rails. If the driver inadvertently operates the pickup truck with the tailgate down, unsecured contents of the bed may slide out onto the road and be lost or damaged, or create a hazard to vehicles traveling behind the pickup truck.